This picture of a saddle is a true representation of what the saddles of today looks like. The deep tooling, relative low cantle as compared to the high cantles of the "A" fork saddles of the 1800's. Also the stirrup leathers are inside or under the seat instead of coming through and out side of the seat. The swell is not as high or sharp as the older saddles. There are only three saddle strings instead of four, this is because of the cutting of the seat. The old "A" fork saddle had a seperate piece of leather cut to fit from the seat front binder to the swell. This put an extra concho holding an extra string binder just below the point of the swell. The tooling has come a long way from the older type of tooling, but that is not to say that it is any better. The tools used to tool the leather and the tanning processes are better, this makes the newer saddles look better with somewhat deeper tooling. All in all the saddles of today are just as pretty and just as useful as the saddles of yesteryear. The main difference is that the cost is a lot higher. Of course a $30.00 saddle of the 1800 hundreds was just as expensive to a cowboy then as a $1500.00 saddle of today is to todays cowboys. Check my catalog for more indepth pricing.